Five days after their peers in Douglas County made a similar move, Adams County commissioners voted Tuesday morning to opt out of a public health order requiring younger students and their adult staff be masked. But unlike Douglas County, the Adams County officials criticized the order’s ability to let counties opt out at all.

The saga began last week, when the Tri-County Health Department implemented an order in Adams, Douglas and Arapahoe counties requiring masks for children between the ages of 2 and 11 in school and child care settings, as well as the adults they work with. But the order also gave the individual counties the option to opt out of the order, which Douglas County officials have said is a result of their own tiff with the health department late last year.

But should a county opt out, the order still allows individual school districts to opt in. That dynamic has played out in Douglas County, where the county has chosen to opt out and the school district is enforcing the order all the same. It now appears set to play out, albeit in different circumstances, in Adams County, where districts, like Adams 12, had implemented their own mask requirements before Tri-County’s order. But unlike in Douglas, where the commissioners will likely pass a resolution Tuesday opposing their district’s decision, the Adams County officials supported giving their own schools the option to choose for themselves.

The discontent with Tri-County, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday morning, is growing. Lora Thomas, the head of the Douglas County Commission, said last week that she anticipated her commission would be back to debate leaving the agency’s umbrella and told the crowd to “stay tuned.”

Lynn Baca, an Adams County commissioner, expressed a similar sentiment Tuesday. She said it was “clear to her” that the county needed to stand up to its own health department, despite the high financial cost needed to do so.

She said Adams “cannot live and we cannot stand under an opt-out order.” Other commissioners were similarly frustrated that Tri-County decided that masks must be worn in schools but that counties can still choose to not do so.

“If the health department believes it’s necessary to mask up, then the order should just be that,” said commissioner Eva Henry at the meeting’s outset. “County commissioners have never, ever given directives to school boards. They are a separate, elected body and locally controlled. … County commissioners are not health experts and shouldn’t be put in the position to make decisions about health.”

“It makes it political,” she added.

The commission voted 3-2 to opt out of the order. The commission’s intent, the five members said, was not to oppose masking or the spirit of the order. Henry and Baca, both of whom voted to opt out, expressly said they supported mask wearing. While the Douglas County commissioners based their decision on their belief that the order was unnecessary, their Adams County counterparts defended its intent, often to boos from a packed crowd. 

Commissioner Steve O’Dorisio, who was jeered after warning of threats to capacity at Children’s Hospital Colorado, which is beset with a surge of RSV cases, voted to keep the mandate in the county. But he wanted the health department to give the districts, not the counties, the ability to opt out. 

After announcing his vote, he was again booed, and one woman told him he’d be replaced. Henry asked staff to prepare sheriff’s deputies to clear the room if the outbursts continued.

“The issue that we have here today is not to make the Tri-County Health Department order go away,” said commissioner Charles Tedesco. “The issue here is, is it appropriately under the authority of this board to enforce it or should it be done individually through those school districts that you are attending?”

“We don’t need to change the order,” he added. “The order is the order.”

Commissioner Emma Pinter gave an impassioned defense of the agency. She urged the board to stand behind Tri-County’s health board, three of the nine members of which are appointed by each county’s commission. She said the board has “put their lives on the line … have feared for their safety this past year and a half, and we need to make sure that we have the backs of the people we appointed to the board of health.” 

Her comment about health officials’ fearing for their safety drew laughs from the crowd.

“I would implore my colleagues to take our authority, which we have delegated to Tri-County Health,” Pinter continued, “and take their recommendation seriously and follow this order, which is designed to protect our children.”

When Pinter finished, Henry said the board all believed the order was correct. But “making it political … is wrong.”